"Sir Arthur C.B.E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A." <science@zzz.com> wrote in message 
news:747cb8a0-0735-4f8e-b16b-df161ca2d4d4@n37g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
On May 17, 6:34 am, Tom Davos <tda...@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.truthout.org/arizonas-war-immigrants59522

Arizona's War on Immigrants

Request to have sex with a cactus is denied.



-- 
Harlow Victor Allen Campbell
Moderator
alt.alien.research  alt.alien.visitors
sci.skeptic  alt.conspiracy  alt.astronomy

Sunday 16 May 2010

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report

"Most immigrants are economic refugees," Bob Kee explained as we drove
across the rolling arid hills of south-central Arizona towards the
border of Mexico. "US policy in the post-9/11 world states that the
government knew there would be bcollateral damage,b meaning more dead
migrants because of the increasing militarization of the borders. But
when people are desperate, theybll do what they need to do to feed
their families. Itbs a survival situation, and thatbs where webre at."

Kee is a volunteer with the group the Samaritans, a migrant advocacy
organization whose stated goals include "to save lives and relieve
suffering of migrants in southern Arizona" and "to encourage elected
leaders to humanize border policy."

The Samaritans have their hands full, and while they are, from what
Truthout saw, doing a great job on the former, clearly every group or
person sympathetic to the plight of immigrants in that state are
shocked by the recent legal machinations of Arizona Governor Jan
Brewer.

Arizonabs new anti-immigrant law (SB1070) granting law enforcement
personnel the right to detain people based on the "reasonable
suspicion" that they are undocumented immigrants recently elicited
strong condemnation from six UN human rights experts, who on May 11
claimed that the law may violate international standards that are
binding in the US.

"A disturbing pattern of legislative activity hostile to ethnic
minorities and immigrants has been established with the adoption of an
immigration law that may allow for police action targeting individuals
on the basis of their perceived ethnic origin," the experts said.

Isabel Garcia, an immigration advocate and federal public defender,
told CNN on April 20 that the legislation "legalizes racial profiling"
and added, "I think this bill represents the most dangerous precedent
in this country, violating all of our due process rights. We have not
seen this kind of legislation since the Jim Crow laws."

Brewer also signed a controversial bill that bans ethnic studies in
Arizona schools, just three weeks after signing SB1070. The more
recent law banning ethnic studies affects specialized courses in
African American and Native American studies, and will probably shut
down a popular Mexican-American studies program in the Tucson school
district.

These draconian measures come on the heels of reports of immigrant
abuses, like migrant women in US custody being shackled during
childbirth (as reported by Inter Press Service this March), and
reports by the same agency a year ago that human and civil rights
organizations charged that migrant women, while in Arizonabs Maricopa
County Sheriffbs Office jails, suffered broken arms, dislocated jaws,
intimidation and other vulgarities.

The mild-mannered Kee, who has been doing this work for four years,
took me to see the trails immigrants coming across the border into
Arizona use on their long, dry march towards economic opportunity.
(Even the US Border Patrol [BP] admits that more than 90 percent of
immigrants come to the US due to economics.)

As we passed scrub brush, dry creek beds and various desert cactus
while driving down the Altar Valley that most migrants use to enter
Arizona, Kee told me how he comes out a few times each month to walk
the trails with his first aid kit, extra water and food, looking for
people in need - whether they be migrants from Mexico or Central and
South America, or anyone else in this barren landscape in need of
assistance.

People Are Dying in Our Backyard

"The BP, as part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has
really stepped up their presence and policies here since 9/11," Kee
explained, "So their increasing militarization of our border has
forced migrants into more remote and mountainous regions to avoid
getting caught. That has caused a dramatic increase in the number of
deaths, and webre seeing it firsthand."

Sealing traditional crossing areas and forcing migrants into more
isolated, remote, and deadly areas is known as the "Funnel Effect," as
documented by the Bi-National Migration Institute.

The "collateral damage" from the BP and overall DHS policy comes in
the form of what are referred to as "recovered remains." When people
die from exposure in the desert, it is extremely difficult to
determine when they died if the body is not found quickly. So county
medical examiners in the area (Pima, Yuma and Cochise counties) tally
the number of "recovered remains" brought to them each month.

This March, the Tucson-based human rights group Coalicion de Derechos
Humanos announced that the number of recovered remains on the
Arizona-Sonora border since October 1, 2009 had reached 85, a 60
percent increase from last year. And this does not accurately reflect
the total extent of the crisis, as numbers of recovered remains in
neighboring states are not available. But the increasing numbers are
indicative of a failed policy.

Kat Rodriguez is the Coordinator of Derechos Humanos. "We also
continue to see the tragic trend of the recovery of remains of unknown
gender, which make up about 24.7 percent of the numbers this year,"
she wrote in a March press release about the dramatic increase in the
number of recovered remains. "This means that approximately one in
four individuals recovered are of unknown gender, making
identification all the more difficult."

Her group maintains a list of recovered remains in an effort to assist
family members to identify their loved ones.

Kee drove us up a dirt road. We parked, and each put on a backpack
filled with water, extra clothing, and snacks. He had a GPS and first
aid pack, as well as extra water, in case we crossed paths with some
migrants.

"Sometimes we come out and set jugs of water along their trails," he
explained. "Often when BP find them, they are confiscated or knifed.
Not always, but this happens, along with the fact that webve had two
Samaritans arrested and tried for putting out water."

There are also numerous stories of the BP providing life-saving
medical aid to stranded migrants, and their efforts to save the lives
of groups that have been abandoned by their less-than-trustworthy
guides (coyotes).

As we hike up a well-used trail, there are, periodically, empty water
bottles and water jugs strewn along the way. Itbs an ongoing cat and
mouse game - as coyotes are paid large sums of money (by immigrant
standards) to lead teams ranging from 3 to 30 migrants into the US
across treacherous terrain.

Immigrants must trek across 20 to 60 miles of open desert, depending
on where they get picked up on the US side. Then, if they are lucky
enough not to be abandoned by their coyote, they are often loaded into
a truck or van that takes them to an apartment, from which they find a
way to a job, or relative who may be awaiting their arrival.

But things often go wrong. Minutemen sometimes take shots at migrants.
There are stories of BP pushing migrants into cactus before taking
them into custody (BP tend to call migrants "tonks" because that is
the sound their flashlights make when they strike the skull of a
migrant), and coyotes sometimes rape their female clients, in addition
to the aforementioned deaths.

"We find folks with blisters you would not believe, ankle injuries,
extremely dehydrated and hungry," Kee explained as we hiked along the
rugged trail, "Nobody should die out here. Webre simply trying to
prevent that from happening."

We come upon on old adobe house that has long since been abandoned.
Itbs filled with burned mattresses, garbage, bullet casings, and empty
beer cans. "Ibve never found a migrant carrying beer," Kee said with a
smirk.

Further along the trail there are more empty water jugs, and old empty
bottles of electrolyte drinks. Kee continued talking to me.

"If there was a poor family in Kentucky, and the father ventured to
California to find a job to support them, hebd be a hero," Kee
explained, "Whatbs the difference here? Only that somebody drew a line
in the sand."

Any report on the immigration issue would be remiss if it failed to
mention NAFTA as the root cause. Locals in Mexico and other countries
in Central America struggle to earn a living due to neoliberal
economic policies that undercut their ability to do so - hence,
turning them into economic refugees who then look north for salvation.

Our hike failed to produce an encounter with any migrants, so Kee took
me to a camp maintained by the group No More Deaths near the small
town of Ruby. The group, whose slogan is "Humanitarian aid is never a
crime," maintains an ongoing humanitarian presence in this desert
migration corridor south of Tucson. They do so by keeping a fixed base
camp and intermittent mobile camps, and concentrate on upholding "the
most fundamental human right - life itself - by providing basic
humanitarian assistance to those in need."

No More Deaths also works in Mexico by maintaining aid centers for
deported immigrants in border towns of the Sonora, where they provide
medical care, recovery of confiscated belongings, and work to document
human rights violations. Their volunteers are "committed to bearing
public witness to the injustices taking place on the border" and in
2008 published a detailed report, "Crossing the Line: Human Rights
Abuses of Migrants in Short-Term Custody on the Arizona/Sonora
Border."

There are two large tents-comprised of tarps strapped to PVC pipes.
Under one of these sit 13 students sharing lunch together. These, from
University of Vermont, Notre Dame, Gilford College, and Northern
Arizona University are part of a larger contingent of 42 students
doing internships with No More Deaths. In total, 150 students
volunteered their spring breaks with No More Deaths.

"Ibd want to know someone cared if I was walking around out there,
lost and hurting," Christa Sadler, a student from Flagstaff, told
Truthout. "If I can just work with one person, bandage one blister, at
least I can do that."

Gene Lefebure, a volunteer of six years who helped start No More
Deaths, sat nearby eating a sandwich. When I asked him why he does
this work, he looked me deep in my eyes and said, "People are dying in
our backyard."

I Donbt Hate the Agents, I Hate Their Policies

A few days later, in Tucson, Kat Rodriguez from Derechos Humanos
agreed to drive me to see the border wall erected by the US National
Guard near the Arizona town of Sasabe, 71 miles southwest of Tucson.

"Many people, even Mexican-American documented citizens of the United
States, are too afraid to access medical services because of fear of
deportation/harassment," Rodriguez explained as she drove us south
across the desert. The conversation then shifted back to her core
work, documenting recovered remains and human rights abuses.

"We get calls from families asking about their loved ones who crossed
if they havenbt heard from them," she said. "We also get calls from
workers who come here, then donbt get paid by their employer. They
hire them, work them hard, then donbt pay them, and often get away
with it since the workers are undocumented."

According to Rodriguez, the level of anti-immigrant sentiment in
Arizona is so high that these types of abuses and violations are
rampant. "BP claims that 10 percent of the migrants are criminals, but
they donbt have any data to back their claim," she added.

She explained how migrants are often robbed by their coyotes, or
handed over to bandits to do the same. If a migrant sprains an ankle,
they are often left behind to die.

Rodriguez, like Kee, told Truthout that there are plenty of instances
where the BP has saved migrants lives, but her focus is on BP abuses.

"Most of these stories arenbt officially recorded because of fear,"
she said as we approached the small border town of Sasabe. "But there
are plenty of stories of men being caught and thrown into cactuses,
not given medical attention, and one woman who was stuck with the butt
of a gun by a BP agent. Then they just say she fell and hit a rock."

"The militarization of the border is imposing this oppression,"
Rodriguez continued passionately. "Half the BP agents are Chicano, and
they are more heavy-handed with the migrants because they feel like
they need to prove themselves. There is an economic draft with the BP,
like that with the military."

"I donbt hate the agents, I hate their policies," she added.

We arrived at the tiny border town of Sasabe. After a few winds in the
road, Rodriguez guns the engine and we hop onto a dirt road and bump
alongside the 14 foot high metal border fence erected by the Arizona
National Guard.

"Once we get to the end, webll have about six or seven minutes before
the BP show up," Rodriguez said as we sped up and down steep ravines.

At the end of the 2.2-mile dirt road (the fence runs approximately two
miles the other direction as well), we stopped and got out to look at
the end of the wall, which ceased abruptly as it entered more hilly
terrain. I laughed to find immediately at the end of the wall a bumper
sticker attached to one of the wall bars that read 'No Border Wall,'
and a large, well-worn path used by migrants. The path was akin to
many Ibve hiked in large US National Parks, except that it was strewn
with empty water bottles. The presence of the path less than five feet
from the end of the wall underscores the futility of the wall.

"It makes them [politicians, BP, etc.] feel warm and fuzzy and safe,"
mocked Rodriguez. "I wouldnbt say this increases BPbs chances of
catching people. I bring people here because itbs so obvious what this
is. Itbs a joke."

We climbed back into her truck and started driving back on the bumpy
road, as Rodriguez continued, "I donbt see things getting better. The
Obama administration is listening to previous advisers on this. This
policy has been a complete failure."

A BP agent pulled us over when we were on our way back to Tucson and
asked us where we were from. After hearing our accents and profiling
us, he let us go without asking to see our IDs, and Rodriguez kept
talking.

"I think there are some things you canbt un-witness and unlearn," she
said. "So for me not to do this work, I donbt think I could live with
myself. And I also think about how much worse it would be if I did not
do this."

She admitted that sometimes rewards for her work only come in grim
form. "Every so often we ID a body and give a family closure," she
said in a lowered voice as we neared Tucson. "Ibve had to be the one
to tell somebody their loved one is dead. I have heard the hope
literally be breathed out of their body when they heard that their
person is dead."

Rodriguez told Truthout that since the border policies were
implemented in the 1990bs, there have been more than 5,000 recovered
remains found, and "who knows how many more are out there?"

Rodriguez explained that 52 percent of all the migrants from Mexico
use this corridor in south-central Arizona. "So this is ground zero,"
she said. "1,000-1,500 immigrants a day are processed through the
Federal Court in Tucson."

Operation "Streamline Taxpayer Money Into the Private Prison Industry"

The $67 million edifice that is the Evo DeConcini (former Arizona
Attorney General) Federal Courthouse in Tucson stands as a monument to
corruption.

Every weekday at 1 p.m., around 75 undocumented immigrants, freshly
caught by the BP, are paraded into a cavernous courtroom on the third
floor. The clinking from their manacles and leg irons echoes around
the room while they are led to their seats, all of them wearing the
same dirty clothes they were wearing in the desert when they were
picked up by BP. More clinking as each stands when their name was
called, as they each answered "presente." Then clinking again as they
were taken, five at a time, to stand in front of the Judge Tom Ferraro
to plead guilty, in a simultaneous "Si," for entering the country
illegally.

Thus is immigration criminalized by a vulgar display of inhumanity.

The maximum sentences, as explained by the judge, are six months in
jail and a $5,000 fine. After more information is imparted to them by
the judge, five at a time, the migrants are asked if they signed their
plea agreements, to which they all answer "Si" simultaneously. To this
Judge Ferraro replies, "All plead guilty." Any who incurred legal
infractions during previous stays are given more time in jail.

There is a short period after this when each of their lawyers (who are
paid between $6,000 and $12,000 of US taxpayers' money per day),
standing behind their immigrant "clients," make brief requests from
the judge for their clients. A husband and wife asked to be sent to
the same jail so that when they are released they will be together.
Another asked if he could be held in Tucson so he can be near his
three daughters who live there.

To these Judge Ferraro responded that he would make a recommendation
towards this, but the final decision would be up to the prison. After
this, he announced, bThatbs all gentlemen. Thank you and good luck to
you.b

As another group of five migrants shuffle their way out of the
courtroom, I notice a shorter man wearing a dirty yellow and white
shirt, with a particularly anguished look on his face. His eyes catch
mine just as he exits the courtroom.

The total amount of time it takes from when Judge Ferraro began
calling their five names to his dismissal of them is five minutes and
17 seconds, roughly one minute and three seconds per migrant for their
"trial."

Isabel Garcia, the aforementioned Federal public defender, is not
amused by these ongoing show-trials at the US District Court of
Arizona.

"All pretense of any justice is removed, aside from having a judge and
lawyer present," she told Truthout before we entered the courtroom.
"The entire criminal case happens before your eyes. My position is
that DHS controls everything - these judges and courts are doing what
the BP wants. This is just a show trial, but with real consequences
for the immigrants and taxpayer."

Operation Streamline was created by George W. Bushbs Department of
Homeland Security in 2005, on the theory provided by BP that by
recording migrants' illegal entries, they would be deterred from
returning over the border. Since the program was launched in 2008, it
has not functioned as a deterrent in any way. Instead, it has served
as a generator of millions of taxpayer dollars into Arizonabs economy.
BP agents, federal marshals, criminal defense attorneys, judges and
especially Arizonabs private prison industry are all on the receiving
end of these funds.

Garcia told Truthout that it costs taxpayers between $20 and $22
million per month bto run this courthouse, not including lawyers or
the private prison complex that locks up the immigrants.b

Many of the migrants do their time in nearby Eloy, Arizona, at the
Eloy Detention Center that is operated by the private prison firm
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). In addition to the Eloy
Detention Center, the CCA has brought three more detention facilities
to the small town, adding 1,500 new jobs. David Gonzalez, Arizonabs US
marshal, said taxpayers shell out between $9 and $11 million every
month to incarcerate migrants at Eloy alone.

CCA has pulled off this money-making scheme by the usual methods.

Former Arizona Democratic Senator Dennis DeConcini (whose father the
courthouse is named after), is on the board of directors of CCA, and
is also friends with former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, who
left that post to become DHS Director.

In Mexico

The next day, Truthout visited the border town of Nogales, where
immigrants are usually dumped by another profiteer of the movement to
criminalize immigration - Wackenhut transportation services. The port
of entry here is also named "DeConcini."

Through the port, a short walk down a hill brings one to the building
of Grupo Beta, a Mexican group that provides first aid and assistance
to returned migrants. Sitting outside I am surprised to see two men I
recognized from inside the DeConcini courthouse from Operation
Streamline the day before. One of them is the fellow with the dirty
yellow and white shirt, still wearing the same anguished look on his
face.

His name is Victor Rodriguez and he is 45 years old. He is an
unemployed plumber who was caught by the BP while trying to make his
way across the border en route to Chicago to see his three-year-old
daughter. Hebd lived and worked in the US for 13 years before he was
caught by immigration authorities and sent back to Mexico.

He was one of a group of 15 who had paid their coyote $2,800 for the
trip over the border, and now he is broke, without even fare for a bus
ride home.

When asked what he would do now, he took a deep breath, exhaled, and
said, "Nada." After a pause, he added, "Maybe in two months I will try
again, because I have no money and no work. Itbs my only option."

Sitting beside him was Royal Mendoza, 35 years old, who was also in
Operation Streamline the day before. Like Rodriguez, Mendoza had lived
in the US. He was in Philadelphia for four years, working as a
mechanic, but was caught without papers and sent back to Mexico. He
has made seven attempts to cross back into the US, and plans now to
try again.

"My family is there and I need to be with my family," he explained.
"My wife is a waitress in Philadelphia, and I have a 1-month-old
daughter there."

Every person with whom Truthout spoke explained that they had tried to
enter the US before, and will try again.

Javier Hernandez explained that he could "write a book" about his
experiences while trying to cross the border to get back to his wife,
who lives in Nashville and is studying at a community college. He,
like many others, had lived in the States before. "I have had so many
experiences and so many stories," he explained. "But now I have no
money, so I have troubles."

Irena Bargas, 38 years old, lived and worked for seven years in
Houston "at a plastic company," and has a seven-year-old daughter
there.

"Ibve been back in Mexico for one week now," she said tiredly. "I will
try again to go back. Who could live without being near their child?
All of us will try again, because many of us have family in the United
States, and none of us have jobs here. We stay here separated from our
families and starve because there is no work, or we try again."